


five-tenths of the twelfth

by myriadThalassas



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Fairy Tale Elements, Gen, mild horror elements, tw: mention of institutionalization
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:16:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28311489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myriadThalassas/pseuds/myriadThalassas
Summary: The mayor receives a complaint one day—an exhortation, really, all crumpled paper and shaky words.Run him out of town, if you know what’s good for you.Easily, he laughs it off. What did one more redstone shop matter, in the long run?(Turns out it mattered very much.)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	five-tenths of the twelfth

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to write something for Etho's 10 year anniversary of his LP, and it turned into this totally unrelated thing (but still with him). Whoops. Also, each part is, according to my word processor at any rate, exactly 100 words each because that's the only way I can write fanfic these days--if AO3 counts it differently, though, I don't mind.
> 
> Title from the horse's mouth himself (in his, PauseUnpause, and VintageBeef's escaping the Nether video).

The storefront is nothing to look at: painted wood in neutral tones, sagging roof. It is rudimentary, adequate, ordinary.

Few who pass it even glance in its direction; fewer bother to read the sign (quaint) nailed over the door: _Ersatz Inventions._ Only a handful muster up the care to go in.

No one remembers when it opened.

(The mayor receives a complaint one day—an exhortation, really, all crumpled paper and shaky words. _Run him out of town, if you know what’s good for you._

Easily, he laughs it off. What did one more redstone shop matter, in the long run?)

* * *

The interior couldn’t be any more different.

A riot of color assaults as soon as one enters: magenta, chartreuse, vermilion, blue. Bright hues, vivid—too vivid, one would have thought, to work together, not even considering the textures. That it all somehow looked good was, truly, a miracle.

That is usually when one notices the displays.

(Trinkets: ornate music boxes, delicate dancers spinning ‘round and ‘round. Contraptions: whirring, chirping beasts wrought of iron. Wonders: too many to describe.)

Before knowing it, noses are pressed against frigid glass, eyes fixated. The same thought courses through all visitors’ minds: _they seem so—_

“—real.”

* * *

Starting, yelping, freezing—no matter the initial reaction, all look behind them eventually.

The person they find standing there is tall and slender, pale skin and paler blond hair that sweeps over his eyes. “Real,” he repeats. Despite the mask, the words come out clear. “That’s what they say, at least.”

He brings his fingers together, the beds of his nails stained blood-red with redstone dust. “Honestly, though,” the man continues, “I think it’s a bit overrated. Realism, I mean. I can do much more.”

Always after, a pause; always after, a sweep of his arm. “Do you want to see?”

* * *

The first to accept is a youth: snide, devil-may-care, affecting disaffection. “Eh, whatever.”

The pair go in far deeper than the exterior implied.

“What’s this?” In the darkness, a finger points to a set of goggles, leather embossed with silver swirls.

A quick glance, a wave of the hand. “Oh, that? Just a prototype. They let you see anything you want to find.”

“Just think about it and…?”

“Yeah.”

“… _sure_.”

“Don’t believe me?” A chuckle. “You can have them, if you want.”

Rolled eyes ready—if but for a lovesick memory. _I can’t find my ring…_

“For free?”

“Sure.”

_Why not?_

* * *

A week passes before the youth returns panting, grinning. “I thought you were full of yourself,” is what’s said in lieu of a greeting. “But it worked and now he and I—oh, we’re so happy.”

“Really?”

A rapid nod, followed by rummaging in pockets, a held-out fistful of diamonds. “Here. It’s not much, but it’s the most I can do.”

“Oh, no.” A gentle, almost playful shoving away of eager hands. “I don’t want your money.”

“But!—”

“Just keep using those goggles whenever you need them.” Behind the ever-present curtain of hair, the man’s eyes glint. “That’s enough for me.”

* * *

“I heard the kids talking about you—how you’re making all their wishes come true, free of charge.”

“And?”

The other leans forward over the counter. “I don’t know what kind of scheme you’re trying to pull, but it won’t work on me.”

“I’m not trying _anything_.”

“No redstone can do what you apparently do!”

“You’d know, of course.”

A momentary speechlessness. “Why, obviously! I run the largest—”

“But you’re still losing money, right?”

“—how did you…?”

“Here.” He hands over a small box of polished steel and glass. “It’s already set to make diamonds.”

“Are you joking?”

“It’s a gift.”

* * *

This time, there is no thanks given, no attempt at a reward. When the speech is given to the employees about the good news, there is not even the barest mention of the machine that was chugging in a closet day and night, popping out diamonds by the truckload.

It is only when everyone else has gone home that the newly-minted tycoon sees him: back elegantly straight, hands deep in his pockets. Even from this distance, one could feel the sharpness of his gaze.

Something shifts around his face before he turns and walks away. _A smile. It’s a smile._

* * *

Bony hands, beginning to gnarl before their time, grip together in supplication. “I know it’s a lot to ask for,” comes the croaked request, “but I’ve heard you can do more than a lot, that you can do—”

“Miracles?” The word is said slowly, almost sardonically. “Nah. But I can do this. Do you have a reference?”

“Y-yes.” Shaking fingers slide a faded picture of a baby across the table.

Head turns down; silence.

“…is there something the matter?”

“No,” the man says again. He looks at the photograph for a moment longer before tucking it away. “I’m just sorry.”

* * *

After that success, it truly begins: furtive glances turn into wide-eyed stares; new, wondrous contraptions pop up all over town.

“Did you hear?” says the mayor to the chief of police one night. “Half the town seems to be going crazy for that place.”

The other snorts. “Honestly, I don’t know if they’re just bluffing. All the ones who walk that beat say there’s absolutely _no_ commotion. If this guy could really perform miracles, you’d think there’d be a mob outside his store day and night, but—zilch.”

“Maybe that’s the miracle, too.”

“Very funny, mister mayor.”

“Another drink?”

“You bet.”

* * *

The fantastic continues to happen—every single day it seems that the dead walk, the wind speaks, and the heavens part.

As the mayor passes by the now-famous storefront, he spies a familiar figure leaving the premises. “Hey,” he calls to the chief of police, waving. “I thought you said everyone was just bluffing, eh?”

The latter freezes totally before, with the stiffness of the dead, swiveling on a heel to meet the other’s gaze. “Well,” is the snappish reply; a wrapped package is held like a lover. “Can’t someone be wrong?”

Before he can say anything, the chief is gone.

* * *

Time’s arrow marches ever forward—a marriage crumbles, ends. _Too much jealousy_ , one of them claims. _It’s like I was constantly being watched, no freedom at all._

Time’s arrow marches ever forward—there’s a reckoning, delayed but never stopped. The boss was already so rich _,_ thinks one of the workers on the last day of operations. Was tax evasion really necessary?

Time’s arrow marches ever forward—a sending away, bitter and reluctant. “The baby,” is the broken cry before the staff sink the tranquilizer deep into the neck. “My baby…”

(No one really notices, too caught up in their own gifts, affairs, selves—)

* * *

(—except one.)

The man barely has time to glance up before he is shoved against the wall.

He looks down, meets the other’s gaze. “Yes, mayor?”

“You’re ruining our town. I knew from the moment you came in—”

“Then why did you let me stay?”

“Shut up!” Tighter goes the grip. “Stop it now!”

“Stop what?”

“Giving everyone these—these damned trinkets!”

“…if you wish.”

“I mean it!”

“And I mean what _I_ said.” Eyes flash (anger? Or mirth?) “But it’s not my fault, you know. I give them options; _they’re_ the ones who pick what you deem the wrong choice.”

* * *

What little good his outburst had done is far too late: one by one, people move away, or get taken away, or, worst of all—

He is at a loss of purpose, of joy. It comes to the point that, after his fifth or so despairing letter, his daughter responds with a single sentence, clipped and exasperated even through plain text: _I’m coming to visit; heading back home on Sunday._

_I’m taking you with me_ is the unspoken second. It is not an offer.

On his last day in town, he gets up, dresses, and walks to that accursed store.

* * *

“Hello, mayor,” the man says politely.

A barked laugh. “I resigned. Not much point in being mayor of a ghost town.”

“Oh, you never know,” comes the mild reply. “Ghasts may make excellent citizens.”

“ _Ghosts_.”

“Right. So, why are you here?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I _need_ something from you.”

“What?”

“Just a pen, some paper, and answers to some questions. Now: where are you headed after you’ve killed this town for good?”

The man tells him.

“And what are you?”

The man tells him that too.

“I’ll make sure this gets to her,” he calls as the other exits, sobbing.

* * *

He rises with the dawn, strolls around with hands in his pockets and a tune on his lips. There was something so peaceful about small towns, a quality that only increased when they were abandoned. And some thought those assignments were punishments!

It is at golden hour that he realizes how much time he’s wasted. “Well,” he says, tone jovial, “guess it’s time to start cleaning up.”

He lingers to watch the sunset a little longer. The breeze stirs up his hair—sweeps away, for just a moment, the bangs covering his wetly glistening, blood-red eye.

“Now for the next one...”

* * *

The storefront is nothing to look at: painted wood in neutral tones, sagging roof. It is rudimentary, adequate, ordinary.

No one remembers when it opened.

(The mayor finds an envelope on her desk—inside, a letter from an old friend, the leader of a dead town somewhere east. _I hope you’re well_ , it starts, and then, in cramped, hurried writing marred on occasion by water damage—sweat? Tears?—

She ponders the warning for a bit—she had never known the other to tell tall tales—before shaking her head, putting it into her drawer. _Preposterous_.

After all, what did one more redstone shop matter?)

**Author's Note:**

> What is Etho in this fic?
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> (In all seriousness, I imagined him as half-ghast, but eh.)


End file.
